Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/497

It is not the purpose of this address to go into the history of canal exploration or exploitation. There are a number of routes available for uniting the two oceans which wash the American Continent, and there is still a divergence of opinion as to which is the best locality for building the canal. Several routes have good points, and it has been only by a discussion of the pros and cons, weighted for their relative values, that a final conclusion has been reached as to which is the best. Many years ago this process eliminated all but two of the routes—Panama and Nicaragua—from serious consideration.

The work of solving the canal problem has fallen largely on the Navy of the United States. Company after company has been formed for the exploration of the different sections which it seemed desirable to examine, but in each and every case they came to the government for assistance, and their requests were referred to the Navy Department. Finally the government itself took up the matter and put it under naval control. The selection of the navy to perform this work was a wise and economic policy. Its officers are educated at a scientific school and drilled in surveying the coasts of the United States as well as in making surveys in all parts of the world covered by the voyages of naval vessels, as required by the following extract from the U.S. Naval Regulations, viz: "He" (the captain) "shall, when his duties and other circumstances permit, make a careful survey and construct a chart of any shoals, harbors, or dangers to navigation that he may discover or find inaccurately located." Such duties make the naval officer well fitted for the work of exploration. Not only was this an enforced duty on the navy, however, but willing hands were found who sought to carry the American flag into and across the inhospitable and almost impenetrable forests which abound in the tropical regions, where Nature herself has almost built a canal.

While many spasmodic efforts were made to cut the Gordian knot, about the